There is increasing recognition that adaptability and changeability are critical determinants of the long-term effectiveness and, in relevant cases, profitability of complex technical products, contracts, organizations, and systems. Many complex products, contracts, organizations and systems exhibit high degrees of lock-in making them difficult to adapt and manage in the face of environmental change and uncertainty, and by extension hindering adaptability. For large-scale technical systems, factors which contribute to non-adaptability are considered as switching costs, which are weighed—whether formally or informally—against the benefits of switching to new systems, products, contracts or operating procedures. Switching costs can be real dollars, or quantifiable costs associated with personnel considerations, political implications, or the time it takes to switch. They are further associated with what might be called switching risk.
Increasing the adaptability or flexibility of a system demands lowering future switching costs before the environmental changes which demand a switch arise. System designers should mitigate the causes of architectural lock-in at the design stage, before systems are fielded. Much recent research has addressed the need to design for flexibility and methods to design for it. Real Options Analysis for example, is a method of valuing system flexibility by framing system design in terms of stock-option theory. Similarly, the concepts of Spiral or Evolutionary Development emphasize the need for continual development and improvement of large systems rather than all-at-once development and operation. At their core, these methods seek either ways of systematically and strategically identifying the benefit of various kinds of flexibility and introducing it at the design stage, or delaying critical design decisions until environmental uncertainties are resolved.